This blog is totally independent, unpaid and has only three major objectives.
The first is to inform readers of news and happenings in the e-Health domain, both here in Australia and world-wide.
The second is to provide commentary on e-Health in Australia and to foster improvement where I can.
The third is to encourage discussion of the matters raised in the blog so hopefully readers can get a balanced view of what is really happening and what successes are being achieved.

Sunday, April 28, 2013

This Is A Really Interesting Development In Information Sharing. The UK Adds A Duty To Share Information - With Safeguards.

Information: To share or not to share?

Information Governance Review

Patients and clients give staff in health and social care personal and confidential information about themselves all the time and they trust that we will protect the information they give. As we move to a more electronic age, where information can be shared more easily, and across many more types of organisations, the Government accepted the Future Forum’s recommendation for a review of the balance between protecting patient information and its sharing, to improve patient care. The term used to describe how we manage this is ‘Information Governance’.

Dame Fiona Caldicott has been leading this review with an independent panel of experts, on behalf of the secretary of state. The panel was asked to make recommendations on the balance between sharing personal information and protecting individuals’ confidentiality taking into account; how to ensure that we improve the sharing of personal information to support the care of individuals; enable the further use of information more widely to improve health and social care services; protect individuals’ confidentiality and respect their wishes in relation to how their information is used.

We would like to thank everyone who has taken the time to contact us. See the news items below for more information or follow us on twitter @caldicott2

The concept that there is a duty to share information that is in the interests of the patient - presumably with other care providers seems to me to have some interesting implications. Just how you determine what is in the interests of the patient will be a very interesting discussion in the final report.

The response of the UK Health Secretary is interesting. It is clear opt-out has been adopted with safeguards

The Health Secretary today responded to the Caldicott Review, outlining how technology can have a transformational effect on healthcare.

Responding to the Caldicott Review on information governance in health and social care, the Health Secretary outlined that information and technology will only have a transformational effect on healthcare if this agenda respects the relationship of trust between a medical professional and their patient.

Speaking at the Electronic Patient Records Conference, Jeremy Hunt said that while effective sharing of patient information has enormous potential to improve patient care, services and treatments, this can only be done effectively if patients are given a say over how their personal information is used.

He announced that:

any patient that does not want personal data held in their GP record to be shared with the Health and Social Care Information Centre will have their objection respected

where personal data has already been shared from a GP practice to the Information Centre, a patient will still be able to have the identifiable information removed

The BMA, NHS England and the Royal College of GPs will be raising public awareness so that people are informed of the changes and know how they can lodge an objection and GPs understand the role they need to play in implementing this.

Jeremy Hunt said:

The Caldicott review has been about striking the right balance between sharing people’s health and care information to improve services and develop new treatments while respecting the privacy and wishes of the patient.

If patients are to see the benefits of these changes we must respect the wishes of the small number of people who would prefer not to share this information. I firmly believe that technology can transform the quality of healthcare in this country, but we must always respect the fact that this is very personal information about an individual.

Jeremy Hunt also announced that Dame Fiona will chair an independent panel to oversee and scrutinise implementation of the review’s recommendations and to provide advice on information governance issues.

Interesting stuff indeed. Especially the last and additional Caldicott Principle.

7 . The duty to share information can be as important as the duty to protect patient confidentiality Health and social care professionals should have the confidence to share information in the best interests of their patients within the framework set out by these principles. They should be supported by the policies of their employers, regulators and professional bodies.